Tannase is an extremely useful enzyme for use as an inhibitor of cream down in tea or a clarifier in the production of beer.
Conventionally, tannase has been produced by culturing a microorganism belonging to Aspergillus oryzae capable of producing tannase in special medium containing tannic acid etc. (Japanese Patent Publication No. 8584/81).
However, the conventional process of producing tannase was not satisfactory with respect to tannase yield, etc.
Hence, the problem of the present invention is to produce tannase by genetic engineering means to increase the yield.
Under such circumstances, the present inventors found that tannase can be efficiently obtained from a culture of bacteria belonging to the genus Aspergillus carrying a recombinant plasmid prepared by inserting into a plasmid vector a DNA fragment containing a gene coding for tannase.